On his new album Wasteland, Jim Ghedi has created something huge. Intense, brooding, bold, at times apocalyptic, and remarkably vast. A profoundly bold sonic statement that is some of the most rich, far-reaching and ambitious work that Ghedi has created to date - pushing the boundaries of what folk music can be in 2025.

Wasteland is a record that is unafraid to plunge into the darkness of the modern world and embrace the weirder, edgier and more unnerving moments that come from doing so. It is an album that captures all the enormity of life from the micro to the macro, zooming in on the personal as well reflecting on broader societal issues.

“Wasteland is about the idea of a place once known or familiar that is now broken down and unrecognisable,” says Ghedi. “It’s about exploring the process of watching someone’s surroundings and environment collapse.” And within that you have a lot going on. “It also explores death, personal loss, grief, mental health and how the natural world provides solace and meaning for that loss and how these worlds blur into one another.”

Ghedi has always been an artist that in many ways perfectly encompasses folk music in its purest form but he is also someone that frequently pushes the boundaries of that label and no more so is that apparent than on this record. As like previous albums, such as 2018’s A Hymn for Ancient Land and 2021’s In the Furrows of Common Place, Ghedi uses traditional folk songs as a means to explore contemporary issues via modern and experimentally-leaning music. “With the traditional material on this album I wanted to find songs with content that resonated with me,” says Ghedi. “But also that were based roughly around the north of England.” This is a central underlying theme to the album for Ghedi. The feelings of loss, erosion, and degradation are often most pronounced in working class communities and this was something he wanted to weave in. “It was important to voice and choose material that represented or expressed issues that correlated with things going on around me.”

However, as remarkable as some of the traditional material is, some of the most arresting work on the album is Ghedi’s entirely original compositions. Lead single ‘Wasteland’ is a stunning piece of work that while rooted in an environment being corrupted and broken – “there’s violence on these hills” Ghedi sorrowfully sings, before claiming this is no longer somewhere that can be called home – it is also a stirringly beautiful composition that soars and glides as it opens up, as sweeping strings swoop and in and out of Ghedi’s twangy electric guitar.

The decision to incorporate more fuller sounds, such as electric guitar and huge drums, results in a notable shift and evolution in tone for Ghedi. “The lyrical content needed something more band-driven and loud to deliver them,” he explains. “Incorporating the electric guitar in my songwriting was also a big part of opening the sound up, using drop tunings pushed me to use my voice in a wider range, which forced me to use falsetto a lot which I haven’t previously done before. That then opened the sound up and gave me creative ideas for bigger arrangements and to sonically really push things.”
Recorded over 2 years at Tesla Studios in Sheffield, with David Glover engineering and producing, it also features a wide cast of musicians such as David Grubb (fiddle), Daniel Bridgwood-Hill (fiddle), Neal Heppleston (bass), Joe Danks (drums), Dean Honer from I Monster (synths), Cormac MacDiarmada from Lankum (vocals), Ruth Clinton from Landless (vocals) and Amelia Baker from Cinder Well (vocals).

What Ghedi has done in creating his masterpiece is construct a remarkable space where deeply intimate and personal feelings coexist with reflections on environment, place and society, while also interweaving historical context via traditional songs. Wasteland is as much of a world to explore and exist in as much as it is an album, with Ghedi carving out his distinctly unique sonic language and voice to explore that singular environment.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Old Stones
2. What Will Become Of England
3. Newtondale / Blue John
4. Wasteland
5. Just A Note

Side B
1. Sheaf & Feld
2. Hester
3. The Seasons
4. Wishing Tree
5. Trafford Road Ballad

“Instead of landscape sketches I wanted to go into more personal areas of my reality,” says Jim Ghedi of his third album In The Furrows Of Common Place. “To hold up certain aspects of society that were laying bare in front of me.”

Whilst Ghedi’s previous idiosyncratic take on folk has often been instrumental, exploring the natural world and his relationship to it through his music as seen on 2018's A Hymn For Ancient Land. His new album In The Furrow Of Common Place is a deeper plunge inside himself to offer up more of his voice to accompany his profoundly unique and moving compositions. “There were things I was seeing around me and being affected by in my daily life,” he says. “Socially and politically I saw defiance but also hopelessness. I wanted to be honest with the frustration and turmoil I was experiencing.”

The decision to include more of Ghedi’s vocals was a conscious one and driven by a need to say something. However, this isn’t a brash raging political polemic. As is now customary with Ghedi’s work, it is rich in nuance, history, poetry and allegory. Musically, the album is equally locked into this ongoing sense of evolution. Ghedi’s intricate yet deft guitar playing still twists and flows its way through the core, weaving in and out of gliding double bass, sweeping violin, gentle percussion and vocals that shift from tender solos to overlapping harmonies.

As with much of Ghedi’s work, there’s a rich connection between the past and the current. Musically, he continues to sit in a singular position of sounding distinctly contemporary yet also with a touch of traditional flair. This expands itself into the lyrical terrain here too. “I've been exploring contemporary issues and in that process discovering sources that correlate with similar issues in the past,” he says. “Which proves that these issues throughout history - environmental destruction, working class poverty etc - are ongoing.”

For all the socio-political and historical backdrop to the record it is not one that feels overwhelmed by it. Much like Ghedi’s work when it was largely instrumental - and some of it still is here - it flows and unfurls thoughtfully, with space still being utilised masterfully, creating room to pause and reflect. It’s another inimitable record from an artist that truly sounds like nobody else right now. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An intoxicating mix of traditional folk, hazy psychedelia and classic rock progressions all enriched with Ghedi's distinctive vocal affectations. It's a heady and transportive affair, and one that will reward richly on repeated listens. Gorgeous.

TRACK LISTING

1. Common Thread
2. The Lamentations Of Round Oak Waters
3. Mytholm
4. Stolen Ground
5. Ah Cud Hew
6. Beneath The Willow
7. Beneath The Willow Part II
8. Son David

Fourth release on new independent label Basin Rock following highly acclaimed albums by Julie Byrne and Nadia Reid.

Born in Sheffield before moving around various parts of Derbyshire, Shropshire and Scotland and then settling in Moss Valley - an abandoned and forgotten area on the edgelands of South Yorkshire and North East Derbyshire - it makes perfect sense that 26 year old Jim Ghedi’s music feels both fluidly transient yet also deeply rooted to a sense of place.

In 2015 he released his debut album, Home Is Where I Exist, Now To Live and Die (Cambrian Records), which was an extension of the folk-tinged six and twelve-string acoustic guitar instrumentals he had been forging for some time around Sheffield's pubs and then whilst traveling across Europe. On his second album, A Hymn For Ancient Land, his elemental style of playing has expanded into a fuller band set-up, complete with glorious orchestration and dazzling composition that makes it a truly innovative contemporary record whilst still being rooted in great tradition.

Through the inclusion of double bass, violin, cello, harp, trumpet, piano, accordion and numerous other instruments, Ghedi has elevated his unique blend of folk music to a level far beyond that of that of his earlier work. Perhaps most remarkable still is how seamless their inclusions feel, rather than wrestling for space, the wealth of instruments float in and out of one another, interlocking absorbing guitars, gently whirring strings and drums that beat like the faint sounds of thunder on the horizon.

On top of the community of Moss Valley, a driving force behind much of the creations on this record come from Ghedi’s travels, playing shows in numerous rural towns and villages across the British Isles. This traversing through remote parts of the UK, Wales, Scotland and Ireland soon brought a desire to capture the full breadth, scale and beauty of the landscapes he was witnessing. “I wanted to bring in wider instrumentation to somehow resemble the landscapes which musically I could hear in my head, It was at this point I became fixated on connecting the two worlds of classical and contemporary folk” Ghedi says of the album’s birthing period.

All songs on the album are named after places from said travels - ‘Home for Moss Valley’, ‘Bramley Moor’, ‘Cwm Elan’ etc - and Ghedi’s natural ear and eye for capturing the spaces he inhabits creates an immersive environment, in which the guitar lines seem to mirror rolling hills, the rich hum of the ambience hangs like a gentle morning fog and the intricacies and beauty of the arrangements create something almost tangible in their efforts, like capturing a light dew on the tip ends of grass or the sticky moisture of well trampled soil. Nature permeates through this record from start to finish, gliding through its core like a bubbling brook.

TRACK LISTING

1 Home For Moss Valley
2 Cwm Elan
3 Bramley Moor
4 Fortingall Yew
5 Phoenix Works
6 Banks Of Mulroy Bay
7 Sloade Lane